By Cian Mc Cabe

Delphi Day 1

I packed about 7 hours before I had to be at Heuston station for the train. Wearing socks and sliders was a good idea as I felt comfortable most of the trip too. After our long 4 our train ride(s)  we took a coach all the way to the "resort". It looked good from my first viewing of the building. Although, I got lost. How? I don't know but I did. Oh well. I got locked in the toilets for a solid 10 minutes. And I also am starving. The food looks diabolical at best.

We got our rooms. There were 7 of us. We had a lot of fun for the first hour. (I spilled something on my roommate's bed.) Dinner was below par at best. Chips, Rice and Curry. I didn't have the curry. The chips were coldish with a tone of salt., the rice was, plain rice, edible tbh. For one of our activities on the day we had to climb a huge ladder. I didn't do it, and we built a huge ass Fort. Our team lost. In other news I lost around 14 stone and now I'm sweaty.

Delphi Day 2

I accidentally fell asleep. It was 2 o'clock in the morning by the time I hit the hay. I couldn't sleep until then. Mostly due to my roommates snoring their minds out. I hate it here already. We had Breakfast, coco pops and orange juice was what I had (I drank a little bit of it). What I realised was that there were no soft drinks. Only water, milk and juice. Even at Dinner. I tried to make the best of it but I'm fed up. I begged to leave. I want to go. My legs hurt like ****. I didn't have lunch due to no hunger. I want to leave. Its raining so hard. I'm tired. My legs hurt and we have a 90 minute walk ahead of us. The walk was horrible. It didn't rain thank God but our walk was about 5k. This was added to the Gasice walk thank God. My legs hurt though. At least it's not raining.

Delphi Day 3

Woke up bright and early with the thought of one thing on my mind. Dread. A 18km walk, either in 4-5 hours. I was so sick of it that I didn't eat my whole breakfast. I threw most of it out. An hour to relax and then... the fun began. Walking for 5 hours can be tiring, especially when you're a Big Fella.  However, I found joy in it to be fully honest. The vibes were high. Then they died. But still. Me and my mate were ahead for a while just vibing. My feet hurt so much. My legs are chafed. I don't want to do anything for the next 13 hrs. I just want to rest and sleep until tomorrow when I finally get to see my mam! I get emotional without her. I'm definitely a mammy's boy. I just love her so much. I miss her! I'm so happy that I'll be able to meet her and see her again. We sat in our room for the next 2 hours. Doing nothing really. Gossip had spread that someone had fallen into the bog 4 times. Whilst I'm writing this we are sitting by a campfire. One of the leaders asked a question that started with. "You're sitting on the toilet." It was honestly pretty fun! It was great to sit around a campfire. Although the amount of smoke in our lungs could've killed us. It was fun! Our leaders were amazing too. My Friend broke his phone however. But besides that it was a great day. I couldn't wait to see my mam on Friday! I'm happy right now.

By Leo Liu

I remember it vividly. I was really relieved and relaxed on Monday evening as well as excited to go to Delphi. I packed all of my things like toiletries and clothes and went to bed. I woke up at 5AM to make sure I wasn’t late. I was really tired in the morning but after washing my face I felt better. The morning was bitterly cold and it was drizzling rain, the street lights were on and it was still pitch black out. I made my way to the Luas stop to head to Heuston station.

At the station I met a few friends and as time went on everybody started to arrive and we went onto the train at around 7:15 AM. We rode 2 trains and took an hour bus to delphi. When we arrived there, we were told to set all of our things into a container as our rooms were being prepared and we went off to lunch which was from 1-2 PM. Our afternoon activity was after lunch and we did Jacob’s ladder and bushcrafts which I found very interesting and fun. Then we did energisers which were just some fun activities in the evening. Being in an area with more nature changed how I felt that day. We had to be indoors by 9:30 and in our dorms by 10:30.

On the second day I felt rather tired but I was ready for the day of activities. We were woken up at 8 and breakfast was at 9. We did archery and team tasks, it was in the rain and quite cold out too. I enjoyed it but the weather definitely changed how fun it could have been. In the afternoon, we did combat archery and orienteering. I really enjoyed the orienteering exercise, you got to explore a dark tunnel and feel around for openings to go through and progress through the tunnel. After you exit the tunnel, you are told to draw a map from your memory of going through the tunnel. The rest of the day was really chill and the night was like usual.

On the third day we did our Gaisce 25km walk. It was really exhausting and gave me a few blisters on my heels. It lasted from 9AM to 4PM. I think it was a fun experience but I wouldn’t like to do another one anytime soon. It also made me appreciate the convenience of transport that we have.

On the fourth day, we set out to leave at 11:30am. We were all pretty tired and glad to go back home although we had a great time during Delphi. We had time for one activity in the morning and we did abseiling, which was just falling down with a loose rope in your hand that you would let run through your hand to descend the wall. On the way back we only took one train and a bus. We had a big party on the train back, Mr. Kelleher and Mr. Hazel bought 100€+ of drinks and snacks and we had a great time. We arrived back in Dublin at around 4:30 and all went our separate ways.

Irish Military Museum

By Allen Mejia

Last week, I and most of TY went on a trip to Meath and visited the Irish Military museum as a part of the transition year course (according to the form we got). Each of us had to pay 20 euros to go on the trip but it was worth it because we missed a full day of school and the tour was actually really interesting.

We started the day normally. We got up and got ready for school only this time, we didn’t need to wear our uniforms. We went to school and took a coach at 8:55 - the same time classes start. The trip lasted about 2 hours but it went by fast for me because I was playing a game with Ian. However, I did get a bit travel sick on the way.

When we arrived, it was quite cold but most of us had jackets so we were good. We were met by some guy whom I forgot the name of and he led us to a kind of shelter-cafeteria area where there were wooden benches where we could place our bags as we did the tour. I, for some reason, decided to leave my bag on for the remainder of the trip. Just outside the shelter area, there was a slide, a maze, two swings and a mini obstacle course. Almost all of us were infatuated with the web-looking swing and whenever we had a break, we would go and swing on it.

We waited for about 10 minutes until we were split into two groups - TY 1 and 2. I’m not sure what TY 2 did first but we went on a tour inside the museum. We saw real guns, equipment, uniforms and vehicles used in some very significant historical wars and we got to hold real weapons used during these events which have been decommissioned. I got to put on multiple helmets, vests and hold lots of guns though, a lot of them were covered with gun oil so they were a bit slippery. My favorite ones were the rifles used in both world wars because they were satisfying to ‘reload’. All of us obviously took a lot of pictures.

After the tour we had our break but most of us didn't bring any lunch so we couldn’t. I was fortunate enough not to forget to pack a lunch the night before so I didn’t go hungry.

When we finished our break, we were led to a room where we were given a detailed demonstration of the evolution of rifles and how they worked over the years as well as a display of military uniforms; some of which were Nazi. There were also uniforms from the 1916 rising and world war 2 and we were allowed to go up and put them on. I got to wear a Nazi uniform including the helmet as well as hold the rifle most soldiers used at the time.

After that, we went out to a field where a bunch of decommissioned military vehicles were used.  We got to go inside one of them but unfortunately, we couldn’t drive them.

At the end of our trip, we took a few pictures of us beside a cannon at the front of the museum and had our coach drop us in front of the school gates but all of TY 1 couldn’t go home because we had to do our mandatory QQI level 3 course in the city centre.

It was a fun day overall and the trip was very interactive.

Look up the Website and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, Search Irish Military Museum it’s the first link or click this:( https://irishmilitarymuseum.com/ )